


big teeth small kiss

by heyitsathrowaway



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Rope Bondage, Wax Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:07:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyitsathrowaway/pseuds/heyitsathrowaway
Summary: Arrell is leaving early the next morning. Research, he'd said vaguely, and no amount of pressing on Alyosha's part had revealed any more details. So he will be gone, and Alyosha does not know when they will see each other again, but for a while, at least, Arrell will carry Alyosha's marks with him.





	big teeth small kiss

**Author's Note:**

> i have zero excuses for this. sorry???? also someone needs to stop letting me name stuff after BTSK but oh well, too late

That night, Alyosha binds Arrell with soft rope he purchased earlier that day from a harried woman in the market. She assumed, probably, that it would be used for wall hangings within the church, something functional and mundane.

Alyosha starts with Arrell's hands, winding the rope around his wrists and through the slats of Alyosha's wooden headboard. He checks the knots and the tightness of the rope carefully, brow furrowed in concentration.

"You seem to have some experience in this area," Arrell says. His head is tipped back but his eyes are narrowed, still so stern, even now. He's often like this, when he lets Alyosha take charge of their lovemaking--he likes to pretend that he is merely humoring Alyosha. 

And he is, Alyosha supposes: ropes are nothing to a mage. Arrell could burn them in a moment's thought. But he won't. Alyosha has faith.

"I do," Alyosha agrees, running a finger over Arrell's pulse. "Are you jealous, Tutor?"

Arrell makes a derisive noise, and Alyosha laughs. "I set up a lot of tents when I was younger. I still do, come to think of it. I suppose the great wizard has no need of mere knots to keep a roof above his head, hmm?"

When Arrell says nothing, Alyosha strokes a hand along his face, turning his chin so that he meets Alyosha's eyes. "I asked you a question, Tutor."

"No," Arrell says, his voice a bit rougher now. His hands flex against his bonds. "I don't."

"Well, then this should be educational," Alyosha says brightly. He presses a kiss to Arrell's mouth, and pretends not to notice when Arrell tries to lean up to chase his lips as Alyosha moves away. The ropes bring him up short.

Alyosha smiles, and moves on to his legs. He ties each of Arrell's ankles to the bedposts, spread apart. Kneeling between his legs, Alyosha sweeps his thumb across the delicate bone of Arrell's ankle, watching him. The room is dimly lit: candles sit on the nightstand and the desk, but Alyosha has let the fire in the hearth burn low. The light dances over Arrell's skin, making him almost seem to glow. His chest is rising and falling just a bit quicker than normal, and his face is still a calm mask, despite his cock beginning to harden between his legs. For a moment, Alyosha is almost overwhelmed by the affection he has for this man, for all his follies and his foibles. 

Alyosha draws his hand up Arrell's leg, letting it come to rest at the join of his thigh. He presses in with his thumb, hard, and then he leans down to kiss the same spot, careful not to brush Arrell's cock.

He leaves a series of bruises across Arrell's hips and the insides of his thighs. Arrell is trembling by the time he deigns to make any noise, a rough groan that fills Alyosha with warmth. 

"I'm sorry, Tutor," Alyosha says. "Was there something you wanted?" Arrell is fully hard now. He shakes his head, and gasps when Alyosha runs a thumb up the underside of his cock, touch too light to do anything more than drive him mad. Alyosha slips off the bed, padding over to the side table to retrieve one of the candles in its dish. 

Alyosha settles across Arrell's hips, straddling him easily. He set the candle down carefully on the nightstand and cards his hand through Arrell's cropped hair.

"Well?" Arrell asks, the imperious note in his voice wavering.

"Shh," Alyosha says, and he bends down to kiss him. He curls his other hand around Arrell's face, thumb stroking the sharp tip of his ear, and he presses Arrell's head back against the sheets. Alyosha kisses Arrell the way that Arrell does not often let himself be kissed: wholly and uncompromisingly, long and open-mouthed and wet.

If Arrell's hands were free, he would already have one buried in Alyosha's hair, ruining his braid, but instead Alyosha merely hears the rattle of the headboard as Arrell pulls against it.

Alyosha leans back, licking at his lips. "Careful, Tutor," he says mildly. "You'll hurt yourself."

Arrell stares up at him, mouth red and eyes glassy. He swallows once, the movement of his throat catching Alyosha's eyes. His voice comes out hoarse. "I am not _fragile_."

With a sigh, Alyosha sits back. He picks up the candle. "No," he agrees, "though I wish that you would let yourself be, once in a while." He starts at Arrell's sternum, dripping the wax in a precise curve. Arrell shudders when it hits his skin, his jaw clenching tight. Alyosha moves on to the softer skin of his stomach, laying down hot lines of wax that make Arrell suck in air between his teeth.

Alyosha goes slowly. He's not much of an artist, not the way Arrell is, and he wants to get the design right: a swirling circle folding outwards into five lines, reaching in every direction. Arrell's eyes are closed. He's biting his lip, his hands twisting against the sheets. Arrell is only ever quiet when he is deep in study or when he is like this, clay under Alyosha's hands. And even then, it's a difficult thing, to get him to let himself go.

"Light," Arrell says after a few more lines, naming the glyph Alyosha has been drawing on his chest. The words are drawn from him on a gasp, and his arms are trembling. 

"Good," Alyosha says, running a soothing hand over his stomach. "I'm impressed. It's commonly used in old texts of the Church, for obvious reasons, but I wasn't sure that you would be familiar with it."

"Alyosha." The way that Arrell says his name, Alyosha thinks, is the closest Arrell has ever come to prayer. "Just because I do not honor those texts the way you do does not mean I don't _read_ them."

Alyosha runs his fingernail along one of the lines of wax, peeling it carefully away from Arrell's skin. Arrell shivers, and Alyosha begins peeling the rest away. "Perhaps you should consider what it means to read something without honoring it." 

The next glyph is one Arrell is even less likely to recognize. It appears in only a few of the oldest texts Alyosha has ever worked with, and its meaning is unclear--some scholars argue that it means _scroll_ , or _knowledge_ , or _wine_. Alyosha himself has no opinion, but he finds the image beautiful: a series of lines folding outward, hinged in the middle, like a book, or a pair of open hands.

Alyosha holds the candle closer to Arrell's skin this time, and he pays less attention to the design. Instead he focuses on Arrell's face, on the flush creeping up to his ears and the soft, punched out sounds he cannot help making any longer. 

When Alyosha is finished, he sets the candle down on the nightstand and blows across Arrell's stomach. He smears his thumb across the place where the wax is still soft at the edges. Arrell's breath hitches. "Well?" Alyosha asks, pitching his voice to mimic Arrell's question from earlier.

"Betrayal," Arrell says. His voice is thin. He still hasn't opened his eyes.

"Oh," Alyosha says. He looks back down at the glyph. "Most texts I read say _knowledge_. I suppose I can see how they aren't so different, if one looks at things a certain way." 

Arrell is panting now. He turns his face into his arm, but it only takes a light touch at his chin for him to shift to look at Alyosha. Even like this, Alyosha still half expects an argument, for Arrell to start talking about citations and theses. But there's sweat running into his hairline and his hands have gone slack in the ropes, and he can't seem to find any words. Alyosha leans down to kiss him once on the lips and then again along his jaw, at his throat. 

"Alyosha," Arrell says, when Alyosha bites down hard enough to leave a mark. "Alyosha, _please_ \--" 

"Yes, Tutor?" Alyosha runs a hand over Arrell's neck, but he doesn't say anything more. Alyosha smiles, and busies himself with scraping the last of the wax from Arrell's skin. 

It's slow and methodical work, forcing Arrell to relax, to obey. Alyosha takes to it well; after all, he grew up doing nothing but slow and methodical work, painstakingly copying out his letters and reciting scripture until he had it by heart.

Alyosha much prefers bringing Arrell to pieces to any of his more mundane labors, holy though they are. Nothing is more rewarding than bringing color to Arrell's pale cheeks, than wringing his eloquence from him until there is only the beating heart of him left. And Alyosha believes that this, too, is holy, though Arrell would scoff to hear him say it. There is divinity in the way Arrell shivers, as Alyosha carefully scrapes wax from his skin, in the way his jaw goes slack and his gasps become whines, in the way that his eyes become distant and focused all at once, able to see and think of only Alyosha, and nothing else.

Arrell has begun to squirm by the time Alyosha is finished. He's going to give himself bruises all along his wrists. Alyosha shifts to kneel beside him and presses a hand flat against his stomach, taking away what leverage Arrell has, and he wraps a loose hand around his length. 

"You're very beautiful, you know," he says conversationally, stroking Arrell slowly. "I don't think I tell you that enough. And when I do, you don't listen."

"Alyosha--"

"Be quiet, Tutor. Unless there's something you want?" Alyosha rubs his thumb across the tip of Arrell's cock, watching the way his stomach quivers. 

" _Please_ ," Arrell says, his voice cracking. "Please, I can't--Alyosha, I need--"

"What do you need?" Alyosha stops stroking Arrell. He keeps his other hand on Arrell's stomach, leaning over him to pull the oil from the shelf beside his bed.

Arrell shakes his head, pulls against the ropes around his wrists. Alyosha opens the vial and spills too much oil over his hand, and only then does he realizes that his hands are shaking, a little. He presses a finger inside himself, and he can feel Arrell's gaze on his skin, burning. 

"I'm waiting, Tutor." Alyosha has never told Arrell this, but the sternness he puts into his voice is taken from Arrell's early lectures, when Alyosha first became his student and first dreamed of that voice speaking to him outside of their lessons. He takes another one of his fingers, gasping.

"You," Arrell says, after a long moment. His voice is wrecked. "Alyosha, Alyosha, please, I need you, just you, _please_ \--"

Alyosha leans up to catch him in a kiss, holding himself up with one hand and wobbling precariously. It's worth it, for the way Arrell opens under his mouth, saying Alyosha's name into the kiss, over and over. Alyosha breaks away and straddles Arrell's waist, gripping him in his slick hand and sliding down onto Arrell's cock. He meant to go slowly, he did, but he can't say no to Arrell when he brings himself to beg. Alyosha rolls his hips and tips his own head back. He loves fucking Arrell like this, and a part of him misses the way that Arrell would normally grab at his hips, claw his nails down his back. But there is beauty, too, in the abortive thrusts Arrell tries to make, unable to get any leverage, in the line of his throat as he throws his head back against the bed, in his hands, white-knuckled and useless above his head.

Alyosha finds the slowest rhythm that he can stand, steady rolls of his hips that make Arrell whine, that Alyosha knows he will feel in his thighs in the morning. He's glad: he wants to feel this tomorrow, and for days after. He wants to remember Arrell like this. Alyosha wraps a hand around himself, and he comes like that, across Arrell's stomach, watching Arrell keen and pull against the ropes that he could untie with a thought, if he didn't trust Alyosha so.

"Alyosha," Arrell says again, as Alyosha catches his breath. It may, Alyosha thinks, be the only word he can remember how to say.

"I know." Alyosha slips off of Arrell, settling down beside him, his head pillowed on his elbow and his other hand running down from Arrell's chest to his stomach to touch his cock. "I have you, Tutor, don't worry."

He watches Arrell's face as he brings him off, the way his mouth goes slack and his eyes squeeze shut and Alyosha's name is wrung from his lips one last time. Arrell is never more beautiful than when he is like this, when he forgets that there is a world outside of Alyosha's small and dusty room, that he has any other responsibilities he should be attending to. Arrell has more cares than any one man should have. To see him lose them is always exquisite.

The sheets are already a long lost cause--Alyosha will wash them in the morning--and so Alyosha wipes off his hand on them. "One moment," he says, standing up to retrieve a cloth from beside the basin, a jar of salve from the cabinet, and a knife for the rope from the table. When he turns back to Arrell, though, he finds that Arrell has already unraveled the ropes. He may have overdone it; they're beginning to fray in his hands.

Alyosha sits down beside him on the bed and clicks his tongue. "Tutor, please. Let me take care of you." He takes one of Arrell's wrists in his hands, touching the edges of the marks where the ropes have rubbed his skin raw.

Arrell opens his mouth as if to say something, and then he snaps it shut. He tucks his head into Alyosha's neck instead, breathing out quietly as Alyosha rubs salve into his skin.

"Good," Alyosha says, once he's done both wrists, kissing the top of Arrell's head. "Now your feet." He nudges at Arrell until he lies down. His ankles are better than his wrists: he didn't pull so desperately against his bonds there. Still, Alyosha takes his time.

"You know," Arrell says. His voice is slow, and he has to clear his throat before he can continue. "You know I could heal myself with a word, don't you?"

"I know." Alyosha puts the salve aside on the floor and settles himself along Arrell's side. "But you won't, will you?" Arrell is leaving early the next morning. Research, he'd said vaguely, and no amount of pressing on Alyosha's part had revealed any more details. So he will be gone, and Alyosha does not know when they will see each other again, but for a while, at least, Arrell will carry Alyosha's marks with him.

Arrell's throat bobs as he shakes his head. Alyosha dips his neck to kiss him there. He can feel Arrell running his fingers through Alyosha's hair almost reverently, the ribbon that was holding his braid in place unraveling under Arrell's magic. 

"I love you," Alyosha says, voice hushed. The room is nearly silent, save for the rustling of the sheets beneath them and the crackling of the dying fire.

Arrell's throat works again, but he doesn't break the silence. Instead he tucks himself into the curves of Alyosha's body. He falls asleep like that, safe and warm and where Alyosha can protect him, both from himself and from anything else. 

Alyosha leans over him to snuff out the candle. In the last flickers of its light, Arrell looks peaceful. Alyosha falls asleep telling himself that it will last.


End file.
